John w



June 5, 1923. l'm

- J. w. BARWELL ET AL FEEDER FOR MILLS Filed dan. 18 1922 JOHN W. BARWELL, EROME WAR-D, NICOLAY NELSON, JOSEPH HINGHEBL, WALTERI i BOOT-LAND WILBUR L. BLOWS, OF WA'UKEGAN, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNORS TO'BLTCH- FORD CALF MEAL COMPANY, OF "WAUKEG-AN, ILLINOIS, .A CORPORATION O' ILLI- NOIS.

origina-1 appiicauon flied-apra 17, `191e. serial No. 29.0273..V Diviaeana this applicati@ ala; :rliuiai@v FEEDER FOE MILLS.

is, i922.' serial' ne. 530,030.

T 0 all whom t may concern:

Be it known that weNlOHN WV. BARWELL, JEROME WARD, NrcoLAr NELSON, Josnrn HINGHER, Tanni-R E. BOOTH, and VILBUR L. BLows, citizens of the United States, residing` atv lllaukegan, inthe county of Lake and State of Illinois', have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Feeders for Mills, of which the following is a specification, this being a division of our former application for feeding apparatus, filed April 17, 1919, Serial No. 290,723.

Thisinvention relates to ay device or apparatus for feeding grain or the like into mills, particularly such as centrifugal mills where the grain is drawn in by the suction produced by the mill. j

It is particularly directed to means whereby the grain will be fed with a substantially constant flow regardless of stones, lumps or hard particles which may be in the grain and which otherwise would cause an uneven feeding or lflow of the grain.

The objects of this invention are to provide a new and improved feeding device lfor stabilizing the flow of grain into a mill; to provide an adjustable feeding mechanism and in general to provide such improvements and novel features as will appear from the fol lowing description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which;

Figure l is a. longitudinal sectional view of the feeding device; and

Figure 2 is a detail of the feed regulating plate.

ln the particular form of the invention shown in these drawings, a chute or conduit 3 provides a passagewayfor the grain as it goes into the mill. vIn order that the feeding apparatus may function properly it is desirable that the chute 3 be kept full of grain so as to prevent any considerable amount of air from being drawn through the same except as it comes in with the grain. In order to properly regulate the feed, we provide a feed roller l which is mounted on a shaft 5 which passes through the side Walls of the chute and which may be supported and driven in any suitable manner (not shown). provided with longitudinal orooves or pockets which assist in the feeding action.' A guide or angle bar 6 directs the material in the upper part of the chute onto the roller l kchute is` kept substantially full.

The roller 4 is preferably.

which .isA rotated in the direction marea-teu; by thearrow. A guide or feedpla'te Tex-1i tends across thechute 3`'and coacts with the *7 roller a.. This plate is-rigidly fastenedat its'. f

upper end to the'back of the-chute-by means1y of screwsl ort-he like 8 and is preferably from the roller. ward the wheel by means of set` screws. 9 which pass through the back of the chute 'f 60 made .of resilient material such assheet met-'al`r `or the like and bente so that it swings freelyy `and tends to swing downward and 'awayk The plate is adjusted tci-l and may be held in adjusted position by'lock nuts The lower portionof the plate 17 1s split or otherwise.y made to form fingers 11 as shown particularly in Figurel 2. These fingers are preferably made somewhat narrowfor the purposes which will be presently* described.

The grain or other materialto bev fed into themill is supplied to the chute 3 in any desired manner but preferably so that the The feed may be readily adjusted or regulated by turning the set screw 9 in order to adjust the fingers toward or away'from the roller-t and thereby decrease or increase the dischargey passage.v lf any hard or unyielding object such as indicated at l2enters with the grain'v or other material it will be pressed against l one or more ofthe fingers 1l which-will readily yield to permit it to pass by the vroller i s0 that the entire guide plate 7 is not swung orpressed away from the roller by such unyielding object. This will prevent thefeed opening from being temporarily enlarged to any considerable extent and thereby per-y mit an excess of material to pass through.

This lis. a very desirable feature in connec n tion kwith grain mills as the grain is very apt to have a considerable quantity of unyield-J ing objects therein which ,tend to make vrthe y f feed uneven and thereby interfere with the lproper operationk ofthel mill.v lt will be understood that these objects may be separated from the grain by our separating device which is shown in the co-pending application so that these objects do not passk into the mill.

rlhe feeds for different mills are of course arranged inl 'dierentways and our ffeeding apparatus will be modified in order to accommodate it to different mills and therefore we do not wish Yto be limited to the exact construction or arrangement herein shown yand described e except as pointed out in the following claims.

We claim:

l. A hopper having therein a rotatable feed roller with longitudinally extending pockets therein and a resilient plate rigidly secured at its upper end to an inner face of said hopper and having a body portion with spring fingers at its lower end and means for adjusting the said plate so as to regulate the distance of said fingers from said feed roller.

2. The combination with a chute, of means for regulating the passage of grain or the like therethrough and for maintaining asuiicient supply of grain therein to prevent the free passage of air through the chute, said means comprising a transverse rotatable "feed member, means for preventing the grain from passing between said member and one side of the chute, a plate interposed between said member and the opposite side of the chute and securely fastened to the oppov J OHN lll. BARNELL. JEROME WARD. NIOOLAY NELSON. JOSEPH HINGHER. WALTER E. BOOTH. WLBUR L. BLO`WS. 

